Gorham Woman Crowned Women’s International Pinball Champion

64 women from around the world competed this past weekend in Pittsburgh in the very first Women's International Pinball Tournament and a Maine woman walked away the winner.

Nicole Bernier of Gorham defeated 63 other women to get the title of Women's International Pinball Champion at ReplayFX, an annual gaming festival that fills the massive David L. Lawrence Convention Center with pinball machines along with both modern and classic video games.

It also features several tournaments including Pinburgh, the largest pinball tournament in the world with over 800 players. This year the women's tournament was added and the finals of W.I.P.T were streamed live on YouTube.

Nicole was playing against Priyanka Kochhar of Pittsburgh, Shawna Teale of Calgary, AB, Canada, and Gretchen of Buffalo, NY, all of which are very strong players.

The four women played against each other on three different games. Total Nuclear Annihlation, Super Straight and Taxi and players earned one point for every person the defeated. So a person with the best score would score a 3, since they defeated 3 opponents.

Nicole scored a 3 on both Total Nuclear Annihilation and Super Straight, which sealed her victory before the final game since the other players could not catch her at that point.

For her victory, Nicole won the newest pinball machine from Stern Pinball, Iron Maiden. In fact it's the personal machine of Iron Maiden designer Keith Elwin who donated it with his autograph on it.

Stern Pinball

Nicole will also have her name on a banner hung from the rafters of the convention center for next year's ReplayFX festival.

Nicole said she was so overwhelmed, she cried as she saw all the New Englanders in the audience on their feet applauding her win.

We've cued the video of the finals up to the announcement of Nicole as the winner, but if you'd like to see how she got there, watch from the beginning to see just how much more to pinball there is than trying not to lose the ball.

Looking for places in Maine to play pinball? There are 37 public locations in Maine where you can play pinball and if you start to get the competitive bug, you might consider joining the New England Pinball League. Who knows? You might have your name on a banner as a champion.